To fight online trolls, we must teach teenagers how to think like them A display at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., dedicated to information, the press and journalism. Photo: © Maxppp via ZUMA Press. Showing high-schoolers the real meaning of ‘fake news’ and the First Amendment High school students often combat social media trolling by

A New Front In The War Against Fake News: Kids Through careful instruction, young people can become more media literate. The key is focusing on the way in which kids learn to become robust critical thinkers. Photocredit: GettyGETTY Can children identify fake news? A growing number of organizations believe that the answer is a resounding

To Develop Students’ Critical Thinking Skills, Ask Them To Conduct Scientific Research An An evaluation of a student-research project conducted by biologists at Stanford University found that the experience helped shift undergraduates’ conceptions of what it means to “think like a scientist,” from novice to more expert-like. Photocredit: GettyGETTY For decades—for centuries, in fact—students have been

How Critical Thinking Improves Life Outcomes An 11th grader at Capital City Public Charter School discusses food sustainability during an environmental science class.IMAGE COURTESY OF ALLISON SHELLEY/THE VERBATIM AGENCY FOR AMERICAN EDUCATION: IMAGES OF TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IN ACTION We all know the types. The Ivy League professor who lost her driver’s license because she

The Best Defense against Fake News In a world full of conflicting, misleading, and even intentionally deceptive claims, there’s an urgent need for people to engage in critical thinking — and our schools need to teach thinking skills early. Many schools and organizations have been working to develop students’ critical-thinking capacities in recent years, and

Social media changes how we think. It shifts how we reason. What’s more, social media can affect our mental health, and there’s a good amount of evidence that it makes people more anxious and depressed.

For example, studies have found links between social media envy and depression. And the impact of social media on youth is especially worrisome: social media is associated with lower psychological well-being among adolescents.

The way to combat fake news is to give young people the tools to think critically.

Governments around the world are scrambling to solve the problem of “fake news.” From Turkey to the United Kingdom to India to the United States, governments are taking tech companies to task, launching probes and decrying the spread of maliciously false information on social media platforms.

Is there a faster way to improve critical thinking? A growing body of research indicates that the answer is yes, that we can improve critical thinking through, short targeted interventions.

Critical thinking is a well-known, yet nebulous term. We all tend to have our own subjective definitions of critical thinking. Various researchers also define critical thinking differently, which leads to many different ways to study it. Some researchers choose to evaluate critical thinking by judging one’s thought process, while others focus on logic and reasoning errors.

The State of Critical Thinking A look at school-based programs that are aimed at promoting richer forms of thought Helen Lee Bouygues There’s growing interest in critical thinking programs, and a number of new programs have arisen over the past decade, as experts learn more and more about how people engage in reflective thought—and how